Evidence points to execution-style killings of Gaza paramedics in Israeli attack

[MIDDLE EAST] A forensic doctor who examined the bodies of some of the 15 paramedics and Palestinian rescue workers killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza concluded that there is evidence of execution-style killing, citing the "specific and intentional" location of close-range shots.

According to the UN, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Palestinian Civil Defense, and UN personnel were on a humanitarian mission to collect dead and injured civilians outside the southern city of Rafah on March 23 when they were killed and buried in the sand by a bulldozer alongside their flattened vehicles.

Since the cease-fire expired last month, Israel has intensified aerial and ground operations on Gaza. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to "divide up" the territory.

The incident on 23 March is among the deadliest single attacks on humanitarian workers since the start of the war, drawing comparisons to the 2016 bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Afghanistan, which killed 42. International humanitarian law explicitly prohibits targeting medical personnel and facilities, yet violations have been repeatedly documented in Gaza. The UN has recorded over 400 attacks on healthcare infrastructure since October, exacerbating a collapse of the enclave’s medical system.

The killings of paramedics and rescue workers have sparked global anger and calls for accountability. On Wednesday, David Lammy, the UK foreign minister, stated that Gaza was the deadliest place on Earth for humanitarian workers.

"Recent deaths among humanitarian workers serve as a sharp reminder. Those responsible must be held accountable," Lammy stated.

Ahmad Dhaher, a forensic consultant who examined five of the deceased at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after they were excavated, stated that all of them died of bullet wounds. "All cases had been shot with multiple bullets, except for one, which could not be determined due to the body being mutilated by animals like dogs, leaving it almost as just a skeleton," said Dhaher.

“Preliminary analysis suggests they were executed, not from a distant range, since the locations of the bullet wounds were specific and intentional,” he said. “One observation is that the bullets were aimed at one person’s head, another at their heart, and a third person had been shot with six or seven bullets in the torso.”

The pattern of injuries described by Dhaher aligns with documented cases of extrajudicial killings in other conflict zones, such as Syria and Myanmar, where forensic evidence has been critical in building war crimes cases. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have called for an independent investigation into the Rafah killings, citing the need to preserve evidence amid rapid decomposition of bodies in Gaza’s heat.

He emphasized that there was room for doubt owing to the degradation of the remains, and that in other cases he reviewed, "most of the bullets targeted the joints, such as the shoulder, elbow, ankle, or wrist".

Two witnesses to the bodies' recovery told that they saw bodies with tied hands and legs, implying that they had been detained prior to their deaths. According to Red Crescent spokesperson Nebal Farsakh, one of the paramedics "had his hands tied together with his legs to his body" on Wednesday.

Dhaher claimed there was no apparent evidence of restraints on the five bodies he examined. “I could not recognise any tying marks on their hands due to the state of decomposition of the five cases I checked, so I can’t be sure of it,” he said.

The Israel Defense Forces and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have said IDF soldiers opened fire on the ambulances and rescue vehicles because they were “advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals”. Government officials claimed to have killed a Hamas military operative they named as Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, and “eight other terrorists” from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in the attack on 23 March.

The IDF's assertion that the vehicles lacked identifying signs contradicts both eyewitness testimony and usual operating procedures for relief convoys in Gaza, which typically wear prominent insignia and coordinate operations with Israeli officials. UN officials acknowledged that Israel had been informed of the convoy's route in advance, calling into question the attack's justification.

Shubaki, however, was not among the victims retrieved from the mass grave outside Rafah on Saturday and Sunday, which included eight Red Crescent ambulance personnel, six civil defense rescue workers, and one employee of the UN humanitarian agency Unrwa. The IDF has not responded to questions about why the dead were buried with their vehicles or to reports that some showed signs of having been tied up.

Munther Abed, a Red Crescent volunteer and the sole survivor of the March 23 gunshots, contradicted the official Israeli story, claiming that the ambulances were following safety rules when assaulted.

"External and internal lights are on both during the day and night. Everything indicates you it's a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance. All the lights were turned on until we came under direct fire," explained Abed. He denied that anyone from a militant group was inside the ambulance.

Abed, who was in the first ambulance to come under fire early on March 23, claimed he survived because he flung himself to the floor at the back of the vehicle as the firing began. The two paramedics in the front seats of the ambulance were killed in the hail of Israeli gunfire. Abed was detained and interrogated by Israeli soldiers before being released.

The other 13 victims were all in a five-vehicle convoy dispatched some hours later to recover the bodies of the two dead ambulance workers. All of them were shot dead and buried in the same grave.

An report published in February indicated that more than 1,000 medical personnel had been killed in Gaza since the battle began on October 7, 2023, following a Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis, until the start of a short ceasefire in January. Many hospitals have been destroyed in attacks that a UN Human Rights Council commission judged constituted war crimes.

The targeting of healthcare workers has dire consequences for Gaza’s civilian population, with only 12 of 36 hospitals partially functioning as of late March. The World Health Organization warns that preventable deaths from untreated injuries and diseases now rival those caused by direct violence. “This is a war on the sick and wounded,” said Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO’s Gaza representative, in a recent briefing.

Since ending the two-month ceasefire last month, Israel has vowed to step up its military campaign against Hamas. On Wednesday the defence minister, Israel Katz, said that campaign was expanding to “seize extensive territory” in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu said Israel intended to build a new security corridor as it was “dividing up the Strip”.

Hospital officials in the occupied Palestinian territory said Israeli strikes overnight and on Wednesday had killed at least 40 people, nearly a dozen of them children.